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Thereâs no end in sight to the sleepless nights for bond investors who lost billions of euros thanks to Parmalat, Enron, Railtrack and Cirio and others.

Standard & Poor’s, one of the credit rating agencies that has come under fire for failing to spot problems at the companies it examines, has produced a 10,000-word study in which it declares, somewhat predictably, that its ratings are “consistent”.

Out-of-pocket bondholders could be forgiven for reading that as “consistently wrong”.